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PUNCH mission advances toward 2025 launch
On November 17, 2023, the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission achieved an important milestone, passing its internal system integration review, clearing the mission to start integrating the four observatories. Three of the four PUNCH spacecraft will include SwRI-developed Wide Field Imagers (pictured) optimized to image the solar wind. The dark baffles…
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Vera Rubin Observatory will find binary supermassive black holes: Here’s how
This image is from a simulation of two merging black holes. The upcoming Vera Rubin Observatory should be able to detect binary black holes before they merge. But the vexing problem of false positives needs a solution. Credit: Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) Project When galaxies merge, we expect them to produce binary black holes (BBHs.)…
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Listen to the Center of the Milky Way Translated Into Sound
A new musical piece is based on this composite image of the center of the Milky Way. The bright spot on the right is hot gas in infrared light, marking the approximate location of the galaxy’s supermassive black hole. X-ray: NASA / CXC / SAO; Optical: NASA / STScI; IR: Spitzer NASA / JPL-Caltech The…
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Listen to the Center of the Milky Way Translated Into Sound
A new musical piece is based on this composite image of the center of the Milky Way. The bright spot on the right is hot gas in infrared light, marking the approximate location of the galaxy’s supermassive black hole. X-ray: NASA / CXC / SAO; Optical: NASA / STScI; IR: Spitzer NASA / JPL-Caltech The…
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Go to Infinity and Beyond at Space Bar in Market Square
PHOTOS BY KRISTY GRAVER Houston native Dale Thomas Vaughn spent his childhood watching rockets blast off from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where his grandfather worked as an engineer. Last week he launched Space Bar in Market Square. The interplanetary pub isn’t a pop-up or a recreation of the Mos Eisley cantina from “Star Wars,” it’s…
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Go to Infinity and Beyond at Space Bar in Market Square
PHOTOS BY KRISTY GRAVER Houston native Dale Thomas Vaughn spent his childhood watching rockets blast off from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where his grandfather worked as an engineer. Last week he launched Space Bar in Market Square. The interplanetary pub isn’t a pop-up or a recreation of the Mos Eisley cantina from “Star Wars,” it’s…
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Cyber Monday: Save 34% on this 14-piece Celestron telescope eyepiece accessory kit
If you’ve got one of the best telescopes, you may want one of the best telescope eyepieces as well. So this deal might pique your interest: As part of Amazon’s Cyber Monday sale, it has reduced 34% off the price of the Celestron accessory kit. Get 14 different eyepieces and filters for just $151.96 instead…
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Cyber Monday: Save 34% on this 14-piece Celestron telescope eyepiece accessory kit
If you’ve got one of the best telescopes, you may want one of the best telescope eyepieces as well. So this deal might pique your interest: As part of Amazon’s Cyber Monday sale, it has reduced 34% off the price of the Celestron accessory kit. Get 14 different eyepieces and filters for just $151.96 instead…
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Astronomers discover the Milky Way’s faintest satellite
<div data-thumb="https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/tmb/2023/astronomers-discover-t-2.jpg" data-src="https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2023/astronomers-discover-t-2.jpg" data-sub-html="Detection plot for Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1. Tangent plane-projected sky positions of all stars within a 12′ × 12′ region around the overdensity. Credit: arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2311.10147″> Detection plot for Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1. Tangent plane-projected sky positions of all stars within a 12′ × 12′ region around the overdensity. Credit:…
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JWST uncovers a surprising amount of nickel in adolescent galaxies
Light from 23 distant galaxies, identified with red rectangles in the Hubble Space Telescope image at the top, were combined to capture incredibly faint emission from eight different elements, which are labelled in the JWST spectrum at the bottom. Although scientists regularly find these elements on Earth, astronomers rarely, if ever, observe many of them…